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THE 



DIVINING- EOD: 



VIRGULA DIVINA-BACULUS DIVINATORIUS 

(WATER-WITCHING.) 



By CHAELES LATIMER, 

n 
Civil Engineer. 



"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are 
dreamt of in your philosophy.' 1 — Shakespeat-e. 






k.o.fe/ 






WaS ' 



CLEVELAND, O, 

FAIRBANKS, BENEDICT & CO., PRINTERS, 
1876. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 

CHARLES LATIMER, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



AN ESSAY READ BEFORE THE 

CIVIL ENGINEERS' CLUB OF THE NORTHWEST, 



AT CHICAGO, FEB. 1, 1875. 



PREFACE 



My Essay on the "Divining Rod," (vulgus, "Water- Witching,") 
having proved interesting to a number of my friends, I have 
concluded to give it to the public, with the hope that some 
useful practical results may be derived from it. I have no 
apology to make for presenting this subject in a serious light. 
I regard it as one strictly in the domain of science, and, there- 
fore, worthy of the consideration of scientific men. I have no 
fear of ridicule, knowing for myself and "not for another," 
that what is here presented is the truth; 

To those who seek absolute truth, I need not recommend a 
reading of these pages. To those who merely live by science, 
drawing their sustenance from it as from the "convenient cow," 
as Goethe says, I will simply say, imprison yourselves, gentle- 
men, in your shell; the world will move quite as well without 
you. 

I add a number of notes from various sources to which I 
had not access before writing my own experience. 



ABOUT "WATER-WITCHING; 

(WHAT I KNOW.) 



I have always observed that when any novelty 
is presented for the consideration of man, which 
is not readily proven by already well known sci- 
entific laws, or which may not be demonstrated 
by the knowledge and power of most persons, it 
is found extremely difficult, if not impossible, to 
gain the attention of the devotee of science. 
Whether, indeed, it be from lack of interest, 
from incredulity, or from the fear of ridicule, or 
from any other cause, we look with distrust upon 
anything which is not in harmony with our pre- 
conceived ideas or theories, and we are apt to 
raise the cry of humbug or superstition, and 
reject, with a contemptuous assumption of supe- 
riority as unbelievers, propositions which prop- 
erly put to the test might prove of value to 
mankind. 

Happily for us a wise Providence has not 
ordained that all minds shall plough in a single 
furrow of the great field of knowledge. Some, 



8 THE DIVINING ROD. 

therefore, believe nothing but what they see, and 
frequently doubt the evidence of their own senses. 
Others believe everything they see and nearly 
everything they hear, and seize with too great 
credulity upon every new thing presented to 
them. There are others who disbelieve nothing 
that is presented to them, however apocryphal, 
without full and impartial investigation, aided 
not by testimony alone, but by actual demonstra- 
tion. Again, there are men who are afraid to 
investigate, lest the world should call them 
visionary ; these are always prepared to apolo- 
gize for examining anything outside the mere 
routine of their special science. But the most 
frequent error of mankind is to doubt and ridi- 
cule, without investigation, everything which is 
not commonly received. To such I would cite 
the pungent words of Solomon: "He that an- 
swereth a matter before he heareth it, it is a folly 
and a shame unto him." 

I feel that I am speaking to those, who always 
listen with interest to every proposition, and are 
willing to examine it, until its demonstration is 
clear and its hidden mysteries revealed, and never 
pronounce anything a superstition or an impos- 
ture, until from patient research they have a 
right, through their own experimental knowl- 
edge, to utter a verdict. But, lest there should 



THE DIVINING KOD. 9 

be among us one of these doubting Thomases or 
disbelieving cynics, I would appeal to him with 
the history of the two Spanish students. These 
two young gentlemen, while traveling from Pena- 
flor to Salamanca, stopped at a spring to quench 
their thirst, and whilst seated upon the ground 
near the fountain observed something like a tomb- 
stone, level with the water ; engraven on the stone 
were these words: "Here lies interred the soul of 
Pedro Garcia." The youngest of the students, a 
thoughtless fellow, said, laughing loudly: "What 
a joke. Here lies interred the soul ! Who ever 
heard of a soul being buried ? who can tell me the 
author of so ridiculous an epitaph?" The other, 
a reflective, judicious youth, said to himself: 
"There is some mystery here, and I intend to 
solve it before I leave this spot." Letting his 
companion depart, without losing a moment's 
time he took out his knife, cut around the stone, 
dug under it a little, and there found buried a 
purse containing one hundred ducats, with these 
words in Latin inscribed upon it: "I declare thee 
my heir, whomsoe'er thou art, who hast had the 
genius to understand the meaning of the inscrip- 
tion ; but I charge thee to use this money better 
than I used it." 

Now to the point. The subject to which I am 
about to call your attention — that of finding water 



10 THE DIVINING ROD. 

by means of the "divining rod" — is one of those 
which in modern times is classed among mere 
superstitions, and as such unworthy of serious 
consideration by sensible people. I think I have 
it in my power to demonstrate to you, principally 
from my own personal experiences— the relation 
of which I beg you to accept as strictly accurate — 
that this is an error on the part of the over- wise 
skeptics of our progressive epoch. 

Worcester's dictionary gives the following defi- 
nition of the "divining rod: — "A forked branch, 
usually of hazel, said to be useful to discern mines 
and water." "Witch-hazel — a tall shrub of east- 
ern North America, remarkable for blossoming 
late in the autumn." 

Another authority gives the following : ' 'Divin- 
ing rod — A hazel twig cut in the form of a Y, by 
the aid of which certain persons (meaning, of 
course, sorcerers like myself,) called 'dowsers,' 
pretend to be able to discover water or mineral 
veins. The rod is held in a peculiar manner, and 
the 'dowsers' walk backward and forward over 
the ground to be tried. As soon as he crosses or 
approaches a metallic vein or aqueous spring the 
twig turns toward it with a slow, rotary motion. 
This superstition has not yet died out, and ' dow- 
sers ' are yet common in remote parts of England, 
France and Germany." 



THE DIVINING EOD. 11 

Now, one can easily see that this writer is one 
of those who apologize for seeming to believe a 
thing of the kind by calling it "a superstition not 
yet died out." 

Here is another definition : "Divining rod — 
A forked branch, usually of hazel, by which it 
has been pretended that minerals and water may 
be discovered in the earth. The rod, if slowly 
carried along in suspension, dipping and pointing 
downwards, it is affirmed when brought over the 
spot, where the concealed mine or spring is 
situated." 

"The form, the material and the mode of using 
the divining rod of the modern miners and water 
finders seem to be superstitions of comparative 
recent introduction. Many persons with some 
pretensions to science have been believers in the 
powers ascribed to the "divining rod." 

Here we have another case of the apologetic 
historian. He dared not say that he believed it, 
even though he had seen it. Why? Simply 
because there was no scientific fact or theory upon 
which he could base his belief— so he was afraid 
even to say what he believed, lest people who read 
his encyclopedia might say he was visionary. 

I read somewhere, a long time ago, that this 
superstition was also rife in the eleventh century. 
Now, like the young students above cited, some 



12 THE DIVINING ROD. 

one among you may exclaim, " Who will inform 
me who can be the author of this ridiculous 
superstition ? " I wish I could tell you ; I am 
sorry I can not, but I should not wonder if he 
lived before the days of Moses, the first " dowser" 
on record. When oil was discovered in this 
country many of us believed that there was at 
last "something new under the sun.' We have 
only to turn to the Scriptures to learn that Job 
was in the oil and dairy business a few thousand 
years before Oil City sprung up under our won- 
dering eyes. Job has always been supposed to 
refer to some great miracle when he says, in the 
29th chapter of his book, "I washed my steps 
with butter and the rock poured me out rivers of 
oil ; the young men saw me and hid themselves." 
Also, in Deuteronomy, we read, chapter 32, verse 
13, ' ' And he made him to suck honey out of the 
rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." Now, we 
have these marvels repeating themselves daily ; 
and I think it no very far-fetched idea to assume 
that the " divining rod" was used in the discovery 
of these precious deposits. I am myself acquain- 
ted with a gentleman who has lately successfully 
located two oil wells by this magic (so-called) 
process. 

In fact, who knows but that the first knowledge 
of the "divining rod" was a revelation, and that 



THE DIVINING K0D. 13 

Moses not only understood the art, but taught it 
to the Children of Israel, from whence the sup- 
posed superstition has spread. 

When Moses found the water at Meribeh-Reph- 
idim and Meribeh-Kadesh, in the wilderness of 
Zin, he had received the Almighty's command: 
"Go before the people and take with thee the 
elders of Israel, and thy rod wherewith thou 
smotest the river ; take it in thine hand and go. 
Behold, I will stand before thee upon the rock in 
Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock, and then 
shall come water out of it, that the people may 
drink ; and Moses did so in the sight of the elders 
of Israel." 

In the 20th chapter of Numbers we read of a 
similar miracle occurring three years afterward — 
" And Moses took the rod from before the Lord 
as he commanded him, and said, Hear, now, ye 
rebels, must we fetch water out of this rock. And 
Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod smote 
the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly 
and the congregation drank and their beasts also." 

Now in the 21st chapter of Numbers we find 
these verses: "And from thence they went to 
Beer, that is, the well whereof the Lord spake 
unto Moses. Gather the people together and 
I will give them water. Then sang Israel this 
song — Spring up, O, well ! sing ye unto it. The 



14 THE DIVINING ROD. 

princes digged the well, the nobles of the people 
digged it, by the direction of the lawgiver, with 
their staves." This shows that the lawgiver 
pointed out the places for them to dig, and the 
people made the wells. 

There is nothing like faithful searching if you 
wish to find ; so I advise you to look back also as 
far as Confucius, and then come down to the old 
monk, Roger Bacon, and it would not surprise 
me if you should ascertain that those old wise- 
heads had gone even farther than your humble 
servant into the mysteries of the divining rod. 

But I will not quote from these ancients ; I will 
only look back a short hundred years. In Sir 
David Brewster's Philosophy you will find that 
he says that there is no doubt that the presence 
of water can be detected by the divining rod, 
although it can not be demonstrated by any 
known science. It was this last paragraph which 
I stumbled upon many years ago, that first brought 
me to a practical knowledge of this phenomenon. 
I read it, and being on a visit in Raymond, Miss., 

I went to Judge , of that place, a scholar and 

a man of good sense, whom I took for granted had 
not failed to gather in, among his great stores of 
learning, something about the topic which had 
struck me so forcibly. I was not mistaken ; the 
old gentleman told me that he had not only heard 



THE DIVINING ROD. 15 

a good deal about this matter, but possessed, him- 
self, the power of finding water, offering to show 
me how he proceeded. Soon after we went, aeom- 
panied by my brother, Dr. L., to a spot where 
there was a well known under- ground stream. 
The Judge cut three forked branches from a peach 
tree, each took one and we marched over the spot 
indicated, holding our rods according to the 
approved style of the " dowser" proper. At a 
certain point the switches in the hands of the 
Judge and myself went down simultaneously ; 
the effect was very apparent ; but my brother, in 
whose hands there was no movement, mercilessly 
ridiculed the whole proceeding ; neither the Judge 
nor I being at all disconcerted by his skeptical 
derision of our scientific research. I could not 
be shaken from faith in my actual, absolute ex- 
perience, and was fully convinced that there was 
a mysterious power, beyond my ken, that turned 
the switch. I pondered over the matter, and 
resolved that at some future day I would examine 
more closely into it. 

This, to me, decisive epoch finally came after a 
great number of trials, always with satisfactory 
results as to the bare fact that water could be 
traced or discovered. That the switch did turn 
in my hand readily was undoubtedly true — the 
agency which moved it was the mystery. 



16 THE DIVINING EOD, 

I knew that electricity had broad shoulders, 
and had always carried the weight of every unex- 
plained phenomenon. I said this switch turns by 
electric force. Having evolved my theory, I set 
out to sustain it, by experiment. Upon inquiry, I 
found that not only could water be discovered, 
but it was asserted that minerals as readily an- 
swered to the call of the magic rod ; and, indeed, 
that even their depth beneath the earth' s surface 
might be computed. 

Granting this to be true, I concluded that I had 
not only a philosophical but a mathematical prob- 
lem to solve. I, however, never met any one 
having any information on this latter point, nor 
in my readings did I find any allusion to the 
possibility of ascertaining the depth below the 
surface of any concealed stream or mineral. On 
the contrary, I found the general impression to be 
that the whole thing was a superstition of ignorant 
minds. The doubters frequently met me, and with 
some show of reason, with this personal argument : 
"I cannot believe this thing, because the switch 
does not turn in my hand." It is quite true that 
every hand does not have the power of giving the 
motion to the switch ; but this does not disprove 
the fact of its turning. I have heard that the evi- 
dence of one man who heard a bell is worth that 
of a dozen who did not hear it. The testimony is, 



THE DIVINING ROD. 17 

therefore, to my mind, clearly in favor of the 
"dowsers." All men are not the same conduct- 
ors of electricity. I have known persons who 
could light the gas by running across the floor, 
rubbing their feet upon the carpet, and pointing a 
finger at the jet. I never saw this done, but I 
have no doubt that there are many who can do 
it, and also many who cannot. 

ISTow, although the switch may not turn in the 
hands of all, this is no proof that the current pro- 
ducing the movement does not pass through the 
persons just the same — the effect is only less per- 
ceptible in some, than in others. 

I had made a very large number of experiments, 
from time to time, before I had an opportunity to 
make one which satisfied me that I was on the 
right track. I had in these experiments exploded 
the -superstition of the "witch-hazel," and learned 
that peach, apple, willow, dog-wood, beech, ma- 
ple, iron, steel, copper — in fact, that even an old 
barrel hoop possessed all of its virtues, and so 
concluded that after all this relic of the necro- 
mancer's art of former days was a very simple 
matter, if we could but find the clue to it. A few 
years ago it happened that I wanted to get water 
at a place called Coloma, upon the Chicago, Michi- 
gan & Lake Shore Railroad, of which I was then 



18 THE DIVINING ROD. 

chief engineer. I concluded to test my electric 
theory here. I found that it was necessary to dig 
a well upon the depot grounds — the point was to 
see if I could find water where I needed a tank. 
I took a switch and found water near the desired 
spot; then, with my theory in view, I made a 
second experiment. I bought four ink bottles, 
adjusted them to a pair of wooden sandals, which 
I fastened to my feet. Thus insulated, I walked 
over the ground, my switch in hand, but, as I 
had anticipated, there was no movement — the 
diviner's rod was powerless. I therefore assume 
that I am right in ascribing the phenomenon to 
electricity. I continued my experiments, having 
yet the mathematical point unsettled. Upon 
walking over the ground again and again, I 
found that the switch commenced always to turn 
at the same places, equally (or nearly) distant 
from a centre, and kept gradually turning until 
it pointed directly downward. To assure myself, 
I repeated this experiment many times, and ar- 
rived at the conclusion that the switch commenced 
to turn at an angle of forty -five degrees from the 
edge of the water, and that the distance from my 
hand to the water would be measured by the dis- 
tance from the point where the switch commenced 
to turn to the point of absolute turn-down, and so 



THE DIVINING EOD. 19 

it seems to be. The following diagram will show 
more clearly my meaning : 

A B B A 



w 



A B, B A is the surface of the earth ; W, a 
stream or pool of water below the surface. Walk- 
ing along toward A B the switch begins to move 
at A, and turns down at B ; the angles B A C and 
B C A being equal, the distance from A to B is 
equal to B C. Measure the distance, therefore, 
from the point of commencement of turning to the 
point of turn-down, and you have the depth from 
your hand to the water. I have verified this 
over many water-courses, upon bridges, etc., and 
I am satisfied it is correct, at least for the latitude 
in which my experiments were made. Upon this 
basis I made my first estimate of the depth of the 
water at Coloma, and gave it as from twenty-five 
to thirty feet. I employed an experienced well 
borer and had a two and one-half inch pipe driven 
into the ground at the exact point my switch indi- 
cated, and found water at twenty-seven feet exactly. 
I had the pipe driven down forty feet, and found 
that I had thirteen feet of water in it. I then had 
a windmill erected and a large tank. Up to the 



20 THE DIVINING ROD. 

time of my leaving the road, the engines were sup- 
plied with the water, which, besides, proved to be 
of excellent quality for drinking. 

My well borer, who was a doubting Thomas, 
said he believed that he could get water at the 
same depth anywhere. Fortunately for my theory, 
a neighboring store-keeper tried the doubter and 
failed to get water under fifty-nine feet. 

Subsequent to the satisfactory experiment at 
Coloma it happened that on one occasion, when I 
was traveling west on the Hannibal & St. Joseph 
Railroad, that I was introduced to a gentleman 
engaged in building a road, who related to me that 
during its construction the engineers had made 
use of drive wells as they moved rapidly along. 
As the water question was always one of interest 
to me, our conversation drifted, naturally, to 
" water- witching." The gentleman said that all 
of his knowledge on this subject had been ob- 
tained from his brother — a young man employed 
by Horace Greeley on his farm at Chappaqua. 
Mr. Greeley had sent for him from hearing of him 
as extremely intelligent and thrifty as a farm 
hand. It happened while the young man was at 
Chappaqua that a well was needed, and the ques- 
tion of " water- witching " came up. The young 
man said that his belief was, that if one man could 
find water, so could another — whereupon he took a 



THE DIVINING ROD. 21 

forked switch and, walking ab out, found that the 
magic wand turned down over a rock. He had a 
blast of powder put in at the point, the smoke of 
which hardly cleared away, revealed a spr ing of 
water. Here is simply a repetition of the smiting 
of the rock. In my own experience I have a simi- 
lar instance : I was assist ant superintendent at 

Highlands, on the Vandalia line. Mr. , then 

chief engineer, had, previous to my arrival, 
caused a well of ten feet diameter and forty feet 
depth to be dug and w ailed up with brick, but 
the supply of water was so small that it could be 
pumped out in a few minutes. A hole had then 
been drilled sixteen feet to the rock, which was 
conglomerate, of very great hardness, with no 
better results. The well was therefore abandoned. 

If I had seen Mr. , I should have advised 

penetrating the rock, but I did not meet him, and 
did not wish to interfere with the work. 

Mr. Koepfle, the owner of the land upon which 
the well was located, arrived just at that time from 
Switzerland, and I soon became acquainted with 
him. He came into my office one day and said : 
"Mr. Latimer, do you not think there is water 
under that ground % " I replied, "Yes, I thought 
so." " Did you ever hear of ' water-witching V" 
he then asked. I said "Yes." "Can you tell 
where water is ? " Upon my affirmative answer he 



22 THE DIVINING ROD. 

requested me to go down and try a switch. I did 
so and found that it turned down in a number of 
places about the well. Mr. Koepfle came to me 
again to say that there was a " dowser' ' in the 
neighborhood and to ask me what I thought 
of his employing him. I advised him to try the 
skill of this man by all means. I was not present 
at the trial, but a short time afterward Mr. K. 
came to me in great excitement to tell me that the 
man said there was a subterranean lake at that 
very point. Among other things, he told me that 
the wand in this case was a bit of whalebone — an 

item I treasured for future consideration. Mr. 

had already commenced another well in a marsh 
about half a mile west of the first. Mr. Koepfle 
asked my advice as to what he should do. I re- 
plied, "I cannot take any action in the matter 
officially, but if you will take it upon yourself to 
bore through that rock and pay the expense of it, 
I think that no objection can be made to it, and I 
believe that you will get plenty of water — in which 
case, I am sure you will n&t lose your money." 
" But where can I get a man ?" urged Mr. Koepfle. 

"Try Mr. 's man. I think Mr. will be 

glad to get rid of the expense," I said. Mr. K. 
came soon after with the man and agreed, by my 
advice, to give him $7.50 per day for his own 
work and that of his man with the drills. In Hve 



THE DIVINING ROD. 23 

days the rock was smitten through with a three- 
inch drill, and the water immediately rushed up 
to a point above the natural surface of the ground, 
only held by the railroad bank — which sur- 
rounded the well — and there remained. I am not 

aware that Mr. ever knew that his excellent 

well water was provided for him by the magic 
power of a morsel of whalebone and a peach twig. 
Upon one occasion, at a farm of one of my con- 
nections, the water gave out in the well, (seven- 
teen feet deep,) which had for years supplied a 
a large number of cattle. In the first place I 
ordered the well to be cleaned out, for it was very 
dirty; but there was no improvement. It was 
then decided to dig another. I found a place 
about ten feet north of the old well, where I 
judged there was a small stream, and repeatedly 
estimated the depth to it by my rule', and came to 
the conclusion that it was between ten and twelve 
feet. I was rather'astonished at this, for the water, 
it may be observed, was seventeen feet deep in 
the old well. However the well was begun. I 
asked the digger at what depth water ought to be 
found ; he said at seventeen feet ; but I made this 
a test case, and said, "You will find water here 
between ten and twelve feet, but if I should have 
to say precisely, I should say at ten feet." Water 



24 THE DIVINING K0D. 

was found at exactly ten feet, and stood at that 
point after the well was finished. 

A peculiar test occurred at Toulon, Illinois. 
I was talking on the subject with a friend, a 
lawyer of that place, one dark night at about 
nine o'clock. He asked, "Can you tell how 
deep it is to the water in the well in this 
hotel y&v&V I answered at once, "Yes," 
but said, "it is rather dark, and I know 
nothing about the yard or the position of the 
well." However I went out and started at the 
kitchen door, only asking upon which side of the 
house I should seek. I traced the stream from 
the kitchen door, passing back and forth rapidly 
until I found the well about forty feet from the 
kitchen and near the barn. When I came to the 
well I said, "This stream passes five feet from 
the well and does not go directly into it." I then 
made some examination with the rod, and pro- 
nounced the depth to the water to be fourteen 
feet, which was found by measurement to be cor- 
rect. I will add, that I was never before in the 
hotel yard, did not know where the well was 
located, and the night was exceedingly dark. 
The next morning, while paying my bill, the 
landlord said, "You probably do not know how 
close was your calculation last night. I had that 



THE DIVINING ROD. 25 

well dug myself, and we went down forty feet 
without finding water. Before giving it up the 
digger had himself lowered into the well, listen- 
ing as he went to hear the sound of some stream. 
At fourteen feet he heard water, and boring in 
laterally five feet, where you said the stream 
was, he found a plentiful supply, filling the well 
with twenty- three feet of water." 

Another experience. One day at Wyoming, 
111., a friend said to me, "I must introduce you 
to our ' water- witch,' " who proved to be a gentle- 
man named , a banker of the place. After 

some conversation with him, we agreed to try 
an experiment together and compare experiences 
generally. I asked first, "What do you use?" 
"Willow, hazel or peach — perhaps any green 
twig would do as well ; but I only employ those 
three." "What would you say to an old barrel 
hoop ? " I asked. "Oh, that would not do at all ; 
there must be sap in the wood." We each took 
our rod and went forth, I holding mine in my 
hands, whilst my companion held one end of his 
in his teeth, the other in both hands. I asked 
what he meant by that mode of holding the 
switch. He replied, "That is my way ; there is 
no chance for presumption or pretence in it ; 
some persons can make the switch turn and be 
deceived." I observed that our switches moved 



26 THE DIVINING ROD. 

at the same moment, mine turning down, his 
side wise ; but in every case we agreed, and thus 
traced a number'of streams. I tried his plan, but 
it would not^ answer, while his switcji mov%d held 
in either way. In discussing the matter, I asked 
his theory, which he declined to give, but which 
I divined by a question he asked, viz : "Did you 
ever see a switch turn for stagnant water?" I 
said, "Yes." "Well," he responded, "I never 
did, and the rod will not turn over stagnant 
water for me." "Now," said I, "I understand 
your theory ; it is that the friction of running 
waters underground produces an electric current 
which causes the switch to turn." He admitted 
that I was right. "Now," I said, "I propose to 
explode two of your notions at once. In the first 
place, let us get an old barrel hoop." I found 
one, which we divided. I then went with him 
across the railroad track, which at that place 
runs north and south. The rod .turned down 
for both of us at once ; in this case he used the 
rod in his hand. "Now, you see," I said, "that 
the rail represents stagnant water, and you find 
that a dry twig or stick is as good as a green one." 
I then obtained a piece of copper wire from the 
telegraph office and gave him. He walked across 
the track with it in his mouth and hands, and 
in every case the rod turned to the south for 



THE DIVINING ROD. 27 

him. In finding water the rod always turned 
for him in the direction the stream ran. I found 
he knew nothing about estimating the depth be- 
neath the surface He remarked that he had 
fancied that he knew much of the subject, but 
that a man must "live and learn." I went with 
him to his bank, where w T e threw down a rod of 
iron on the floor, and with our switches found the 
movement to be the same at every trial. Again, 
we placed a silver coin on the floor, with the same 
result — trying several times with his hand on my 
arm. I told him that I meant to invent an instru- 
ment for finding water and estimating its depth. 
A few months ago I received a letter from him, 
asking after my proposed invention. This gentle- 
man gave me a curious confirmation of my ex- 
periment at Coloma. He related that a few days 
previous a friend had been out with him to try if 
the switch would turn in his hand. It did readily ; 
but after dinner he found, upon a second trial, 
that there was no movement. This mystery was 
soon explained by the discovery that our neophyte 
was standing in his India-rubber shoes. 

Another important test I made at the Naval 
Academy, at Annapolis, a few years ago. I went 
there to look at Sir David Thompson's Electro- 
meter, to ascertain if it could give me a clue to 
something which might guide me in the invention 



28 THE DIVINING ROD. 

of the instrument in question. I could discover 
nothing from it, or from the most delicate galvan- 
ometer. One of the professors, however, asked 
me to give them a test. I called for a piece of iron 
wire, walked a few feet, put my foot down and said 
"There is something immediately under here." 
The board was taken up and disclosed the gas- 
pipe. I asked if they were satisfied. "You are a 
man of quick perceptions and might have noticed 
the direction of the pipe," was the answer. "Are 
you willing to be blindfolded ? " I consented and 
succeeded repeatedly in locating the pipe, and 
what is more, in indicating other points of attrac- 
tion to the rod, where all said that my experiment 
had failed, but which proved as full a confirma- 
tion of my theory as the lead pipe. These points 
were those where the iron columns supporting the 
building touched the ceiling underneath. 

Upon one occasion, I visited Professor Henry, 
of the Smithsonian Institute, and presented the 
subject to him. The professor took notes in a 
book, and asked for a test. I gave him several by 
locating the gas and water pipes. We then sat 
down and the professor remarked : ' ' This is all 
personal influence." Of course, the question is 
none the less important or curious on this account, 
and I was a little nettled at the summary disposal 
of the matter. I therefore replied : * s Professor 



THE DIVINING ROD. 29 

Henry, you scientific men are always behindhand 
in discoveries, because you will not investigate, 
and it is left to those not well versed in the laws 
of science to ferret out mysteries and lay them 
bare. I present you two things, Professor — first, 
I find, by insulating myself that there is no motion 
of the rod, which proves electricity ; second, I 
show that the motion begins at a certain point — an 
angle of forty-five degrees from the concealed 
water or metal — and the rod turns down directly 
over it ; thus physical science and mathematics dis- 
prove your theory." I will say that my remarks 
moved the professor, who then showed a very de- 
cided interest and asked me to come and spend 
the following morning with him. Unfortunately, 
my departure from the city deprived me of the 
proposed interview. I have had many other ex- 
periences, but the relation of them would demand 
more time than it is expedient to give to them at 
present. I would add that I have observed in my 
experiments that the smallest underground stream 
affects the rod in my hand in the same degree as 
the cataract of Niagara itself, and that the presence 
of a stove, a bar of iron, or any other metal — a 
water or gas pipe, causes it to turn with the same 
movement as a large mineral deposit ; but it is my 
belief that there is a hidden mode of distinguish- 
ing between them all, outside of all questions of 



30 THE DIVINING KOD. 

personal influence. We know that in what we call 
the dark age of the world, all unexplained phe- 
nomena were referred to personal witchcraft. We, 
as yet, know little of the many phenomena of elec- 
tricity, and in the midst of our own intelligent pop- 
ulation we find, that, to very many, the working of 
the electric telegraph itself is ascribed to superhu- 
man agency. Only a few days ago an intelligent tel- 
egraph operator and his wife, at Horican, thought 
the spirits were communicating with him through 
the wires because they heard the air "Home, 
Sweet Home" in their vibrations — not knowing 
that he was receiving a musical message from the 
newly invented telephone, played at Chicago, 
many miles distant. 

I have desired to show that the use of the 
"divining rod" is at least as old as the Mosaic 
dispensation ; that the knowledge or tradition of 
its use has been understood, to some extent, by 
certain "wise" men in all ages, and that in the 
present age — one of inquiry and research — many 
have a knowledge of it and make use of it to their 
own advantage ; that there is no superstition in 
the matter, but that it is governed by fixed laws ; 
that it requires only intelligent research and ear- 
nest investigation to understand them thoroughly, 
and, finally, to arrive at results of the greatest 
practical benefit to mankind. 



THE DIVINING ROD. 3L 

When we understand that the earth is a great 
electric ball, giving and receiving electricity with 
the nature of the conductors which transport or 
absorb the various currents, we may arrive at 
more comprehensive and correct theories about 
natural phenomena. 

I picked up, a few days since, a periodical 
containing an admirable article on the Electric 
Telegraph, describing most vividly the motion of 
the currents, and I make use of the words of the 
writer to illustrate how it is possible to bring this 
subject to a scientific test : 

"The observer, whom we have supposed capa- 
ble of seeing electricity, would find that the whole 
surface of the earth, the atmosphere and probably 
the fathomless space beyond, were teeming with 
manifestations of the electric force. Every chem- 
ical process and every blow in nature or in art 
evolves it. The great process of vegetation and the 
reciprocal process of animal life all over the globe 
are accompanied by it. As incessantly as the 
sun's rays pass around the earth, warming every 
part in alternation with the cooling influences of 
night, great currents or fluctuations of magnetic 
tension, which never cease their play, circulate 
about the globe, and other apparently irregular 
currents come and go according to laws not yet 
understood ; while the aurora borealis, flaming 



32 THE DIVINING ROD. 

in the sky, indicates the measureless extent of 
this wonderful power, the existence of which the 
world has but begun to discover. Our observer 
would see that these great earth currents infinitely 
transcend the little artificial currents which men 
produce in their insulated wires, and that they 
constantly interfere with the latter, attracting or 
driving them from their work, and making them 
play truant, greatly to the vexation of the ope- 
rators and sometimes to the entire confusion of 
business. If a thunder-storm passed, across the 
country, he would see all the wires sparkling 
with unusual excitement. When the rain fell and 
water, which is a conductor, trickled along the 
wires and stood in drops upon the insulators, he 
would see the elecricity of the line deserting its 
path and stealing off slyly, in greater or less quan- 
tities, over the wet surface of the insulators or by 
the wet straws or kite strings which sometimes 
hang across the line. Now and then he might 
see the free electricity of the storm overleap the 
barriers and take possession for the moment of 
some unguarded circuit, frightening operators 
from their posts. Such an observer would realize 
what it is difficult adequately to conceive, that 
electricity is, as has been said, the hidden force 
in nature, and still remains, as far as man is 
concerned, almost dormant. A high scientific 



THE DIVINING ROD. 33 

authority has remarked, in speaking of metals, 
that the abundance of any object in nature, bears 
a proportion to its adaptation to the service of 
man. If this be true in general, we may expect 
electricity will become, one day, a familiar thing." 
I conclude with a word from the wise and godly 
man I have before cited : "Oh that mine enemy 
would write a book," cried Job. Of course, he 
meant a book setting forth some new-fangled idea 
which he knew would bring upon its author the 
whole army of cavilers. This my little book 
or essay may bring upon me the same legions, 
grown mightier with the centuries which have 
elapsed since Job's day. To them, I can only 
reply, "Truth is mighty and will prevail." 



From Dr. Asftburner in Reicnenbach's Dynamics of Magnetism. 

However vulgar and absurd, because, perhaps, 
not severely exact to habitually erroneous think- 
ers themselves, may appear much of the knowl- 
edge floating among boors and peasants, a very 
remarkable proof of the importance of some of it 
is seen in a singular, though rude anticipation of a 
part of the most brilliant of Professor Faraday' s 
discoveries on magnetism and diamagnetism by 
means of an instrument, the name of which has 



34 THE DIVINING ROD. 

been sufficient to excite the contempt of some so- 
styled savans of repute. If knowledge be not in 
the range of the thoughts of certain severe cogita- 
tors, it is then forsooth, no knowledge at all. The 
unmerciful contempt which has been cast on the 
divining rod — virgula divina or baguette dimna- 
toire — by certain cultivators of science may be 
estimated by a reference to the earlier editions of a 
translation by Dr. Hutton, of Montucla' s improve- 
ment of Ozanam's Mathematical Recreations, a 
book full of most interesting matter. — In the last 
edition of that work, however, Dr. Hutton proved 
himself to be, what he always was, a sincere lover 
of truth. Led into error at an earlier period, he 
was open to inquiry, and became, subsequently, 
convinced of facts, the existence of which he had 
at one time doubted. My friend, Mr. Charles 
Hutton Gregory, lent me a copy of the Speculum 
Anni for the year, 1828, in which he pointed out 
some passages relating to this matter which I 
cannot avoid extracting here, and premising a few 
observations on the instrument called the divin- 
ing rod, virgula divina, baculus divinatorius, 
baguette divinatoire. This has been supposed to 
be a branch of a tree or shrub, necessarily of a 
forked or. letter V shape, by the assistance of 
which, certain gifted persons were enabled to 
discover mines, springs of water underground, 



THE DIVINING ROD. 35 

hidden treasures, and to practice other occult 
doings. This, with regard to shape, is just as 
vulgar an error as that which supposes that a stick 
of any kind of wood, held in the hand, serves as 
well as the hazel or white thorn, for the produc- 
tion of the phenomena. In the counties of 
Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, the facts on this 
subject are well known, and the practice of 
"dowsing," as it is called, has been cultivated time 
out of mind. In France, the men of scientific 
pursuit have for the most part ridiculed the use of 
the baguette, notwithstanding abundant evidence 
in various parts of the country being extant of 
the success which has attended the practice of the 
sourciers. The Baron Yon Reichenbach has 
established facts regarding the emanation of 
lights from graves which are quite as remarkable 
as the proofs of emanations taking place from 
metals or from running water. Now that the 
Baron' s researches and the concurrent testimony 
of the cultivators of mesmeric science have estab- 
lished that certain individuals are more susceptible 
of magnetic impressions than others, it will not be 
pronounced impossible that subterraneous running 
water may influence some persons and not others. 
In different classes the sensitive powers are known 
to vary greatly as they do indeed among those of 
the same species. "But," it has been asked, 



36 THE DIVINING KOD. 

" granting that emanations from subterraneous 
waters may powerfully effect certain persons, 
what connection is there between this impression 
and the motion or rotation of the hazel rod which 
is held in the person's hand or laid over his 
fingers % ' ' What ! is it fact that the hazel rod or 
white thorn moves or rotates in the hands of a 
person of a certain impressionability, when that 
person passes over any ground underneath his 
footsteps on which there happens to be a metallic 
lode or a subterraneous stream of water which we 
call a spring ? I have been informed by highly 
respectable persons, who have in the West of 
England, witnessed the facts, that under these 
circumstances a hazel or a white thorn rod does 
rotate and does move and occasionally dips with 
so energetic a force that on one occasion the bark 
of a fresh hazel rod was stripped from the stick 
and left in the grasp of the operator's hand. 

The following extracts will further illustrate the 
subject : "Although the effects or motion of the 
divining rod, when in the proximity of springs, has 
been and is to this day considered by most phi- 
losophers a mere illusion, yet I think the follow- 
ing brief observations relating to the subject, and 
which was communicated to Dr. Hutton by a lady 
of rank, with the account of her subsequent 
experiments performed before him, his family and 



THE DIVINING ROD. 37 

a number of friends, (as given in the Doctor's 
translation of Montncla's edition of Ozanam's 
Recreations), must convince the most incredulous 
that in the hands of some persons in certain situa- 
tions the baguette is forcibly acted on by some 
unknown, invisible cause. Notwithstanding the 
incredulity expressed by Montucla relative to the 
indication of springs by the baguette or divining 
rod, there appears to exist such evidences of the 
reality of that motion as it seems next to be 
impossible to be questioned. This evidence was 
brought about in the following manner. Soon 
after the publication of the former edition of the 
Recreations, the editor received by the post the 
following well written pseudonymous letter on the 
subject of this problem. The letter in question is 
dated Feb. 10, 1805, and, as with the whole corres- 
pondence it would be too long for our limits, I 
shall select such parts only as are immediately 
essential to a right understanding of the subject. 
"The lady observes, 'In the year 1772, (I was 
then nineteen), I passed six months at Aix, in 
Provence. I there heard the popular story of one 
of the fountains in that city having been discov- 
ered by a boy who always expressed an aversion 
for passing one particular spot, crying out each 
time there was water. This was held by myself 



38 THE DIVINING KOD. 

and by the family I was with, in utter contempt. 
In the course of the spring the family went to 
pass a week at the Chateau d'Ansonis, situated a 
few miles to the north of the Durance, a tract of 
country very mountainous and where water was 
ill supplied. We found the Marquis d'Ansonis 
busied in erecting what may be termed a minia- 
ture aqueduct to convey a spring the distance of 
half a league, or nearly as much, to his chateau, 
which spring he asserted had been found out by a 
peasant, who made the discovery of water his occu- 
pation in that country, and maintained himself by 
it, and was known by the appellation of U Homme 
a la Baguette. This account was received with 
unbelief almost amounting to derision. The Mar- 
quis, piqued with being discredited, sent for the 
man and requested we would witness the experi- 
ment. A large party of French and English ac- 
cordingly attended . The man was quite a peasant 
2 n manners and appearan ce : he produced some 
twigs cut from a hazel, of different sizes and 
strength, only they were forked branches, and 
hazel was preferred as forking more equally than 
most other trees, but it was not requisite that the 
angle should be of any particular number of de- 
grees. He held the ends of the twigs between each 
forefinger and thumb, with the vertex pointing 



THE DIVINING BOD. 39 

downwards. Standing where there was no water, 
the baguette remained motionless. Walking grad- 
ually to the spot where the spring was under 
ground, the twig was sensibly affected ; and, as 
he approached the spot, began to turn round ; 
that is, the vertex raised itself and turned towards 
his body, and continued to turn till the point was 
vertical ; it then descended outwards, and con- 
tinued to turn, describing a circle as long as he 
remained standing over the spring, or till one or 
both the branches were broken by the twisting, 
the ends being firmly grasped by the fingers and 
thumbs, and the hands kept stationary, .so that 
the rotary motion must, of course, twist them. 
After seeing him do this repeatedly, the whole 
party tried the baguette in succession, but without 
effect. I chanced to be the last. ISTo sooner did 
I hold the twig as directed than it began to move as 
with him, which startled me so much, that I dropt 
it and felt considerably agitated. I was, however, 
induced to resume the experiment, and the ef- 
fect was perfect. I was then told it was no very 
unusual thing, many having that faculty — which, 
from what has since come to my knowledge, I 
have reason to believe is true. On my return to 
England I forbore to let this faculty (or whatever 
you may term it) be known, fearing to become the 
topic of conversation or discussion. But two 



40 THE DIVINING ROD. 

years afterwards, being on a visit to a nobleman' s 
house, Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire, and his lady- 
lamenting that she was disappointed of building a 
dairy house on a spot she particularly wished, 
because there was no water to be found — a supply 
she looked on as essential — under promise of 
secresy I told her I would endeavor to find a 
spring. I accordingly procured some hazel twigs, 
and in the presence of herself and husband, 
walked over the ground proposed, till the twig 
turned with consider able force . A stake was im- 
mediately driven into the ground to mark the 
spot, which was not very distant from where they 
had before sunk. They then took me to another 
and distant building in the park, and desired me 
to try there. I found the baguette turn very 
strong, so that it soon twisted and broke. The 
gentleman persisted that there was no water there, 
unless at a great depth, the foundation being very 
deep (a considerable stone cellar) and that no 
water appeared when they dug for it. I could 
only reply that I knew no more than from the 
baguette turning, and that I had too little ex- 
perience of its powers or certainty, to answer for 
the truth of its indications. He then acknowl- 
edged that when that building was erected they 
were obliged to drive piles for the whole founda- 
tion, as they met with nothing but a quick- 



THE DIVINING ROD. 41 

sand. This induced him to dig in the spot I first 
directed. They met with a very fluent spring ; 
the dairy was built and it is at this time supplied 
by it. I could give a long detail of other trials I 
have made, all of which have been convincing of 
the truth, but they would be tedious. For some 
years past, I have been indifferent about its be- 
coming known, and have consequently been fre- 
quently requested to show the experiment, which 
has often been done to persons of high estimation 
for understanding and knowledge, and I believe 
they have all been convinced. Three people I 
have met with who have, on trying, found them- 
selves possessed of the same faculty. I shall add 
only one more particular incident. Having once 
shown it to a party, we returned into the house to 
a "room on the ground floor. I was again asked 
how I held the twig. Taking one in my hand, I 
found it turned immediately ; on which an old 
lady, mother to the gentleman of the house, said 
that room was formed out of an old cloister, in 
which cloister was a well, simply boarded over 
when they made the room. 

'. c 'L'Homme a la Baguette, from experience, 
could with tolerable accuracy, tell the depth at 
which the springs were, and their volume, from the 
force with which the baguette turned ; I can only 
give a rough guess. In strong frost, I think its 



42 THE DIVINING KOD, 

powers not so great. On a bridge or in a boat, I 
think it has no effect — the water must be under 
ground to affect the baguette, and running through 
wooden pipes acts the same as a spring. I can 
neither make the baguette turn where there is no 
water, nor prevent it from turning where there is 
any, and I am perfectly ignorant of the cause why 
it turns. The only sensation I am conscious of, 
is, an emotion similar to that felt on being startled 
by sudden noise, or surprise of any kind. 

"'I generally use a baguette about six inches 
from the vertex to the ends of the twigs where 
they are cut off. 

"'I shall most probably be in London next 
winter, and will (if you wish it) afford you an 
opportunity of making your own observations on 
this curious fact. ' 

"The lady arrived in London, wrote to Dr. 
Hutton to inform him that she proposed being in 
Woolwich on Friday, the 30th inst,, (May, 1806,) 
at eleven in the forenoon. 'Accordingly,' says 
Dr. H., 'at the time. appointed, the lady, with all 
her family, arrived at my house at Woolwich 
Common, where, after preparing the rods, etc., 
they walked out to the grounds, accompanied by 
the individuals of my own family and some 

friends ; when Lady showed the experiment 

several times in different places, holding the rods, 



THE DIVINING KOD. 43 

etc., in the manner as described in her Ladyship's 
first letter above given. In the* places where I 
had good reason to know that no water was to 
be found, the rod was always quiescent ; but in 
other places, where I knew there was water below 
the surface, the rods turned slowly and regularly, 
in the manner above described, till the twigs 
twisted themselves off below the fingers, which 
were considerably indented by so forcibly holding 
the rods between them. 

11 'All the company present stood close around 
the lady, with all eyes intently fixed on her hands 
and the rods, to watch if any particular motion 
might be made by the fingers, but in vain ; noth- 
ing of the kind was perceived, and all the com- 
pany could observe no cause or reason why the 
rods should move in the manner they were seen 
to do. After the experiments were ended, every 
one of the company tried the rods in the same 
manner as they saw the lady had done, but with- 
out the least motion from any of them. And, in 
my family, among ourselves, we have since then 
several times tried if we could possibly cause the 
rod to turn by means of any trick, or twisting of 
the fingers held in the manner the lady did ; but 
in vain ; we had no power to accomplish it.' 

"The annexed figure represents the form and 
position of the rod, about six inches in length, 



44 THE DIVINING ROD. 

cut off just below the joint or junction of the two 
twigs. 




" There can be no impropriety in stating now 
that the lady in question was the Honorable Lady 
Milbanke, wife of Sir Kalph Milbanke, Bart., 
(afterward Noel,) and mother of the present Dow- 
ager Lady Byron, wife and widow of the great 
poet. A very interesting analagous statement 
relating to the same person will be found in the 
Quarterly Review for March, 1820, No. XLIV, 
volume 22. 

"Lately, in France, the Count de - Tristan has 
published a work on the subject, and a most inter- 
esting volume, containing two memoirs, has been 
written by M. Thouvenel, a physician of reputa- 
tion in France, who was commissioned in the year 
1781, by the king, to analyze and report upon the 
mineral and medicinal waters of the kingdom. 
The author undertakes a patient and laborious 
investigation, in the spirit of a philosopher, and 
regards his inquiries as leading to a new thread 



THE DIVINING EOD. 45 

in the tangled skein of physics, which, like any 
fact of science, may lead to the discovery of a 
thousand others ; a fact which may have escaped 
the vigilant sagacity of observers, or which may 
have been totally abandoned to the blind credulity 
of worthy soft-headed persons, or, in short, since 
the reign of a kind of false philosophy, the off- 
spring of scientific pride, may have been delivered 
over to the presumption of men of false wisdom. 
Thouvenel found a man named Bleton, whose 
business was that of a sourcier, or discoverer of 
springs by means of the divining rod, and upon 
this man he made more than six hundred observ- 
ations, many of them in the presence of above one 
hundred and' fifty persons, mostly of important 
stations, and very creditable from their high char- 
acter, who testify to the truth of the observed 
phenomena. Among others, was M. Jadelet, 
professor of physic at Nancy, a man eminent for 
his abilities, who was not only a witness of these 
experiments, but was actually concerned in the 
greatest part of them. As in the case of Lady 
Milbanke, with Bleton an internal feeling was 
coincident with the movement of the rod. When- 
ever this man was in a place where there existed 
subterraneous waters, he was immediately sensible 
of a lively impression, referable to the diaphragm, 
which he called his ^'commotion" This was 



46 THE DIVINING ROD. 

followed by a sense of oppression in the upper 
part of the chest ; at the same time he felt a shock, 
with general tremor and chilliness, staggering of 
the legs, stiffness of the wrists, with twitchings, a 
concentrated pnlse, which gradually diminished. 
All these symptoms were more or less strong, 
according to the volume and depth of the water, 
and they were more sensibly felt when Bleton 
went in a direction against the subterranean 
current than when he followed its course. Stag- 
nant water under ground did not affect him ; nor 
did open sheets of water, ponds, lakes or rivers 
affect him. The nervous system of this man must 
have been susceptible, since he was more sensibly 
affected by change of weather and variations in 
the atmosphere than other persons ; otherwise he 
appeared healthy. A severe acute disorder had 
absolutely at one time deprived him of the faculty 
of perceiving water, and his sensibility in this 
respect did not return until three months after hrs 
recovery ; so that if he were sensitive, he could 
not be classed among the sick sensitive. 

"But however remarkable these constitutional 
peculiarities may have been, there was in Ble- 
ton' s case a more than usual distinctness in the 
behavior of the divining rod. Unlike many sour- 
ciers, he did not grasp it closely; he did not 
warm it in his hands ; he did not prefer a young, 



THE DIVINING ROD. 47 

hard branch, forked, newly plucked and full of 
sap. His custom was to place horizontally on his 
forefinger and thumb a rod of any kind of wood 
(except elder), fresh or dry, not forked, only a 
little curved or bent. A very straight rod failed 
to turn on its axis, but a bent rod turned on its 
axis with more or less rapidity, according to the 
quantity of the water and the force of the current. 
Thouvenel counted from thirty-five to eighty revo- 
lutions in a minute,. and always noted an exact 
proportion between the rotation of the rod and the 
convulsive motions of Bleton. If these memoirs 
be critically examined, it will be found that the 
author experimented with full care to avoid every 
source of fallacy. The natural motions of the rod 
on Bleton' s fingers were backward, but as soon 
as he withdrew from the spring over which he 
stood, in any direction whatever, the rod, which 
instantly ceased to tarn, was subject to a new 
law, for at a determinate distance from the spring 
an action of rotation in a direction contrary to the 
former one took place. This was invariable, and 
upon measuring the distance of the spot where 
this retrograde phenomenon took place, from the 
spring, the depth could generally be found. 

U I pass over an account of numerous experi- 
ments made by this intelligent and careful observer, 



48 THE DIVINING ROD. 

pointing out the analogies of the known phenom- 
ena of electricity and magnetism, by modifications 
resulting to the sensibility of Bleton, and the rota- 
tion of the rod by various ingenious electrical and 
magnetic trials suggested by the inventive sagac- 
ity of Thouvenel, in order to arrive at the curious 
anticipations of some of Professor Faraday's dis- 
coveries, by means of the sensibility of Bleton and 
the invariable laws which regulated the rotation 
of the divining rod, when the experiments were 
made over places where various substances had 
been concealed. under ground. It was found that 
whether the trials were made in this manner, or 
over masses of coal, subterraneous currents of 
water or metallic veins, the divining rod indi- 
cated a determined sphere of electric activity, 
and was, in fact, an electrometrical rod. 'Of 
all the phenomena relating to the distinction of 
fossil bodies,' says Thouvenel, 'acting by their 
electrical emanations, doubtless the most surpris- 
ing is this : upon the mines of iron, of whatever 
kind they may be, the rods supported by the 
fingers of Bleton turned constantly on their axes 
from behind forward, as upon the mines of coal ; 
while upon other metallic mines, as upon other 
metals extracted from their mines, the rotary 
movement took place in the contrary direction. 



THE DIVINING ROD. 49 

that is to say, from before backward. This cir- 
cular movement, which never varies while Bleton 
is in a perpendicular position over mines or upon 
metals, presents revolutions as rapid and as regu- 
lar as the revolutions in the contrary direction 
upon the mines of iron and coal.' 

"The constitutional effects of spasms and con- 
vulsive twitchings took place more or less in all 
the veins, but copper emanations excited very 
strong and disagreeable spasmodic symptoms, 
accompanied by pains about the heart, by flatu- 
lent movements in the bowels, and by abundant 
eructations of air. On lead, there seemed to be 
less unpleasant consequences, but stronger again 
on the mines of antimony. Having previously 
determined that for Bleton, on all the metals 
except iron, there existed a sphere of electric 
activity which propagated itself toward the west, 
a great number of experiments were made, which 
always had the same results. At the depth of 
two, three or four feet under ground were buried 
gold, silver, copper, tin, lead and iron. The weight 
of each was only from five to eight pounds. In 
other similar pits, pyrites of all kinds, sulphur, 
coal, resin, wax and lard were buried. All these 
different deposits were made at distances from 
each other in gardens or in open country, and 
they were so well covered over and concealed, that 



50 THE DIVINING ROD. 

nothing could be perceived but private marks, to 
be known only by certain assistants. Over the 
resin, wax and lard, Bleton experienced nothing. 
Over the coal, there was a decided effect, the con- 
vulsive tremor of muscle was manifest, and the 
rod rotated from behind forward. Over the iron, 
the same indications, but more energetic. A fee- 
ble impression from the sulphur, but sufficient to 
establish a difference between it and the two pre- 
ceding ; and the rod over the sulphur turned from 
before backward. Pyrites produced the same 
rotation as sulphur, and a slight tendency of the 
electric sphere toward the west. Gold and cop- 
per especially exhibited strongly this singular 
tendency of the active electric emanations. Over 
silver, tin and lead, also, it was more remarkable. 
It extends itself more or less from the focus of the 
metals according to their depth and their mass. 
For example, in describing a circle having a 
radius ^of three or four feet from this focus, Ble- 
ton felt absolutely no action except on 'the line of 
the west. It was the same when, in proceeding 
from the vertical point of the focus, he success- 
ively traversed all the radii of the circle, or even 
if he went from all the points of the circumference 
to proceed to the center. In these two inverse pro- 
ceedings it was always only on the radii going west- 
ward, |that his person and the rods were affected 



THE DIVINING ROD. 51 

by movements more or less intense, according to 
the kinds of metal. 

"It must, however, be admitted that the action 
of these metals presenting only the differences of 
greater or less in degree, either in the nervous and 
muscular impressions of the body or in the 
circular revolutions of the rods constantly moved 
from before backward, these differences do not 
yield a certain means of distinguishing the five 
metals one from the other. The object Thouvenel 
had in view was nevertheless fulfilled, for he had 
established the extent and the determination of a 
sphere of electric activity towards the west in 
certain metals and on sulphur which does not 
exist in the same manner, on iron, on coal, or on 
streams of water. 

"To give a summary then of the relations of 
these phenomena to those established by Profes- 
sor Faraday, it may be said that over iron mines, 
the divining rod assumes a movement of rotation 
diametrically opposite to that which it exhibits 
over all other mines. When iron and other 
metals are extracted from their ores and deposited 
under ground, the phenomenon occurs with the 
same distinction, that is to say, with the iron it 
rotates towards the north. With all other metals 
submitted to trial, its action is from east to west. 
The influence of the red metals seems to be more 



52 THE DIVINING ROD. 

energetic than that of the white. But with regard 
to this divining rod, let one condition be re- 
marked — the relation of the organic substance to 
another organic and living power of matter, to a 
human being in a certain susceptible state of 
nervous. system. Thouvenel describes the symp- 
toms which affected Bleton when he was in the 
sphere of metallic action, and the rod becomes the 
secondary part of a philosophical instrument 
composed of an impressionable human being and 
a piece of stick. 

" A highly respectable girl, the lady's maid of a 
very clever and intelligent friend of mine residing 
in Hertfordshire, offers, when she is mesmerized, 
a great many deeply interesting phenomena. 
She is as guileless and as good a being as can be 
met with, and is much beloved by her excellent 
and amiable mistress who has repeatedly 
addressed me in her case. If a piece of hazel 
stick or white thorn be presented to Harriet, she 
grasps it and sleeps mesmerically in less than a 
minute. The sleep is at first very intense and 
deep, and then the stick is held so firmly that the 
spasmodic state of the muscles renders it very dif- 
ficult for even a powerful bystander to turn it in 
her hand. Harriet P's impressionability was put 
to a very useful purpose. Her mistress heard 
that she had a practice of ' dowsing ' for water, and 



THE DIVINING ROD. 58 

writes thus to a friendj July, 1845 : ' We made a 
curious experiment here, some days since, with 

Harriet P . We have very bad water here 

and have long been unable to find a good spring. 
Mr. G. has in vain dug and dug for one. I pro- 
posed the divining rod ; "for," said I, "Dr. Ash- 
burner would not think it a foolish experiment." 
Harriet P. was willing, so we went forth to a field 
the most likely one for a spring — Mr. and Mrs. 
G., myself, and two friends staying here. We 
put Harriet to sleep with the hazel stick. She 
grasped it so tightly we were obliged to use the 
gold chain. She then held it only in one hand, 
and immediately began to walk, taking her own 
way. She went very carefully for about twenty 
yards, then suddenly stopped as if she had been 
shot, JN"ot a word was uttered by any one. We 
all looked on, and were not a little surprised to 
see the rod slowly turn round until her hand was 
almost twisted backwards. It looked as if it 
must pain her ; still no one spoke. Suddenly she 
exclaimed, "There! there! don't you see the 
stick turn % The water is here, under my hand. 
I see, oh, I see ; let me look ; don't speak to me ; I 
like to look. ' ' ' ' How deep is the water % ' ' said Mrs. 
G., speaking to Harriet's fingers. "Oh, about 
three feet ; I can't quite tell, but it is here." In a 
moment, to our astonishment, she sank down on 



54 THE DIVININa ROD. 

the grass, and took the stick again in her hands. 
We made a strange group around her, as we were 
all much astonished to see what we had come 
there to see. She seemed so like a witch. We 
marked the place, and, after a few minutes, we 
awoke her. In the evening she was again mes- 
merized to sleep, and we asked her what she saw 
at the spring. "Why, I saw water, water every- 
where." "Then," said I, "how do you know 
where the spring is? " "Oh, because it goes trin- 
kle, trinkle, I know it is there." " Why did you 
sit down?" "Why, because I was so giddy ; it 
seemed as if all was water but the little piece of 
ground I stood upon. I saw so much water, all 
fresh, no sea. I tried to see the sea but could not ; 
I could not at all." Mr. G. caused a large hole 
to be dug, and just at the depth of three feet the 
water was found. A brick well has been con- 
structed, and there is a good supply of excellent 
water. No one could doubt the action of the rod, 
it turned so evidently of itself in her hand. Of 
course, when awake, Harriet knew nothing of the 
circumstance.' " 

So many and so various are the testimonies and 
the facts relating to the divining rod, that it would 
be tedious to recite the hundreds of respectable 
documents offered by those authors who have 
written on the subject. A work by Tardy de 



THE DIVINING ROD. 55 

"Montravel, printed in 1781, entitled "Memoire 
Physique et Medicinale sur la Baguette Divina- 
toire, 1 ' abounds in testimonies of the truth of the 
same class of facts. One of the most curious 
works on this subject, is a little book entitled 
" Occult Physics, or treatise on the Divining Wand 
and on its utility in the discovery of springs of 
water, mines, concealed treasures, thieves, and 
escaped murderers, with principles which explain 
the most obscure phenomena of Nature," by L. 
L. de Vallemont, Ph. D. This work, embellished 
with plates, illustrating the different kinds of 
divining rods with the various modes of holding 
them for use, appeared at the latter part of the 
seventeenth century, and passed through several 
editions in France and Holland. It is remarkable 
for much curious literary and historical learning, 
and for able statements of the arguments which 
were used in the controversies rife at that period, 
on the realities of the facts under consideration. 
It contains a curious catalogue of a great number 
of mines discovered in France, by means of the 
divining rod, made out by a German mineralogist 
employed for the purpose by the Cardinal de 
Richelieu. 



56 THE DIVINING ROD. 

IFrom Cyclopedia Americana.'] 

Divining Rod. — A rod made with certain 
superstitious ceremonies, either single and curv- 
ed, or with two branches like a fork, of wood, 
brass or other metal. 

The rod is held in a particular way, and if it 
bends towards one side, those who use the rod 
believe it to be an indication that there is treasure 
under the spot. 

Some publications respecting a man who, in 
quite recent times pretended to be able to discover 
water and metals under the ground by his feel- 
ings, attracted much attention. 

Campetti, an Italian, born at Gargnano, on 
Lake Garda, has attracted much attention in our 
time by pretending to be capable of ascertaining 
by his feelings the places where metals and water 
exist under ground. 

Many experiments seem to confirm his state- 
ments. The King of Bavaria sent for him in 1806, 
and he came to Munich, where the experiments 
were renewed. 

These experiments were chiefly made with 
pendulums of sulphurous pyrites, which are said 
to vibrate if brought near to metals. 

BJiabdomancy is the power considered by some 
as existing in particular individuals, partly natu- 
ral and partly acquired, of discovering things hid 



THE DIVINING ROD. 57 

in the earth, especially metals, ores, and bodies 
of water, by a change in their perceptions, and 
likewise the art of aiding the discovery of these 
substances by the use of certain instruments ; for 
example, the divining rod. 

That rhabdomancy, generally speaking, is little 
more than self-delusion, or intentional deception, 
is now the opinion of most natural philosophers 
and physiologists. Still it has some champions. 
From the most remote periods, indications are 
found of the art of discovering veins of ore and 
water concealed in the bowels of the earth, by a 
direct perception of their existence. 

The divining rod is held in the hand so that the 
curvature is inclined outward. If the person who 
holds the rod possesses the powers of rhabdo- 
mancy, and touches the metalic or any other 
magnetic substance, or comes near them, a slow, 
rotatory motion of the rod ensues in different 
directions, according to particular circumstances ; 
and, as in the other cases, no motion takes place 
without a direct or indirect contact with a living 
person. In the South of France and Switzerland 
this art is frequently made use of under the name 
of metalloscope (when discovering or feeling for 
metals,) and of hydroscope (when discovering or 
feeling for water). 



58 THE DIVINING ROD. 



[From Chamber's Cyclopedia.] 

The Divining Rod — often called the Virgula 
Divina, the Baculus Divinatorius, the Caduceus, 
or Wand of Mercury, the Rod of Aaron, etc. — 
is a forked branch, usually of hazel, sometimes 
of iron, or even brass or copper, by which it has 
been pretended that minerals and water have 
been discovered beneath the surface of the earth. 

The rod when suspended by the two prongs, 
sometimes between the balls of the thumbs, will 
distinctly indicate by a decided inclination, it is 
alleged, the spot over which the concealed mine 
or spring is situated. 

Many men, even of some pretensions to scientific 
knowledge, have been believers in the occult 
power ascribed to the magic wand. 

Agricola, Sperlingius, and Kirchmayer, all be- 
lieved in its supernatural influence. So did 
Richelet, the author of the Dictionary. The 
learned Morhoff remained in suspense, while 
Thouvenot and Pryce, in the latter part of the 
eighteenth century, gave ample records of its 
power. 

In a work published by Dr. Herbert Mayo, in 
1847 and 1851, entitled, "On the Truth Contained 
in Popular Superstitions," he gave some curious 
illustrations of the art, supposed to be possessed 



THE DIVINING ROD. 59 

by one in forty of the Cornish miners. At Weil- 
bach, in Nassau, he likewise met with one Lee- 
bold, who, he says, possessed the power, but 
afterwards lost it. 

Arthur Phippen, in 1853, published a pamphlet 
containing an account of two professional diviners, 
or "dowsers." One of them, named Adams, gave 
remarkable indications of being able to detect 
water underground. He not only was able to 
discover the particular spot where the water might 
be found, he could even perceive a whole line of 
water running underground. 



[From Hartwig'8 Subterranean World.] 

As far back as the eleventh century, the divin- 
ing rod came into practice and found full credence 
in a superstitious age. A forked branch of hazel 
tree, cut during a peculiar phase of the moon, 
was the means employed in Germany for the dis- 
covery of buried treasures, of veins of metals, of 
deposits of salt, or of subterranean sources. 

But the miraculous rod did not indiscrimi- 
nately show its power in every hand. It was 
necessary to have been born in certain 'months, 
and soft and warm, or-— according to modern ex- 
pression, magnetic fingers were indispensible for 
handling it with effect. 



60 THE DIVINING ROD. 

The diviner possessing these qualifications 
took hold of the rod by its branches so that the 
stem into which they united was directed up- 
wards. 

On approaching the spot where the sought for 
treasure lay concealed, the magical rod slowly 
turned towards it, until finally the stem had fully 
changed its position, pointed vertically down- 
wards. 

To increase the solemnity of the scene, the 
wily conjurers generally traced magical circles, 
that were not to be passed, burnt strong smelling 
herbs and spices, and uttered powerful charms, 
to disarm the enmity of the evil spirits that were 
supposed to guard the hidden treasures. 



[From American Cyclopedia.] 

Divining Rod. — The increase of knowledge has 
not yet expelled even from the educated portions 
of the United States all faith in the magic virtues 
of this instrument. 

There is a mystery in the hidden flow of sub- 
terranean courses of water, and in the occurrence 
of deposits of valuable ores, which encourage a 
resort to mysterious methods for discovering 
them. 



THE DIVINING ROD. 61 

If the wise can point to no snre clue to them, 
the ignorant pretender does not fail to find one, 
which to many is all the more acceptable for 
its extravagant pretensions and inexplicable 
nature. It is stated by a writer in the " American 
Journal of Science," (Yol. 11, 1826,) that the 
divining rod has been in frequent use since the 
eleventh century. 

A work was published in France, in 1871, de- 
tailing six hundred experiments made to ascertain 
the facts attributed to it, "by which is unfolded," 
according to this work, "their resemblance to the 
admirable and uniform laws of electricity and 
magnetism." 

These sciences still continue to be appealed to 
in order to support in some vague way phenomena 
which defy other means of explication. 

As commonly used, the divining rod is a 
forked, slender stick of witch hazel ; elastic twigs, 
however, of any sort, or even two sticks of whale- 
bone fastened together at one end, do not appear 
to be rejected in the want of the hazel tree. 

One branch of the twig is taken in each hand 
between the thumb and forefinger, the two ends 
pointing down. Holding the stick in this position, 
the palms towards the face, the gifted operator 
passes over the surface of the ground ; and when- 
ever the upper point of the stick bends over and 



62 THE DIVINING EOD. 

points downward, there lie affirms the spring or 
metallic vein will be found. 

Some even pretend to designate the distance 
below the surface according to the force of the 
movement, or according to the diameter of the 
circle over which the action is perceived, one rule 
being that the depth is half the diameter of this 
circle ; whence, the deeper the object is, below 
the surface, the further is its influence exerted. 
It is observable that a rod so held will of necessity 
turn as the hands are closed more tightly upon it, 
though this has at first the appearance of serving 
to resist its motion. From the character of many 
who use the rod and believe in it, it is also plain 
that this force is exerted without any intention or 
consciousness on their part, and that they are 
themselves honestly deceived by the movement. 

On putting the experiment to the test by 
digging, if water is found it proves the genuine- 
ness of the operation ; if it is not found, some- 
thing else is, to which the effect is attributed, or 
the water which attracted the rod is sure to be 
met with if the digging is only continued deep 
enough. Some ingenuity is therefore necessary 
to expose the deception. 

The writer above referred to succeeded in show- 
ing the absurdity of the operation by taking the 
" diviners" over the same ground twice, the 



THE DIVINING ROD. bS 

second time blindfolded, and each time marking 
the points designated by the rod. This, how- 
ever, is a test to which they are not often willing 
to subject their art. 

Some operators do not require a forked twig. 
There was, in 1857, and may be still, within less 
than one hundred miles from New York, a man 
who believed himself gifted in the use of the 
divining rod, and was occasionally sent for to go 
great distances, to determine the position of ob- 
jects of value sunk in the lakes, of ores and of 
wells of water. He carried several little cylinders 
of tin, but what they contained was a secret. One 
had an attraction for iron, another for copper, a 
third for water, etc. He had in his hand a little 
rattan cane, which he used as not likely to excite 
the observation of those he met. 

Taking one of the cylinders out of his pocket 
he slipped the rattan into a socket in its end, and 
holding in his hands the other end of the stick, 
he set the contrivance bobbing up and down and 
around. That it was attracted and drawn towards 
any body of ore in the vicinity he was evidently 
convinced. 



64 THE DIVINING BOD. 

[From Notes and Queries.'] 

Divining Rod. — Divination by the rod or wand 
is mentioned in the prophecy of Ezekiel. Hosea, 
too, reproaches the Jews as being infected with 
the like superstition : " My people ask counsel at 
their stocks and their staff declareth unto them." 
Chap, iv, 12. Not only the Chaldeans used rods 
for divination, but almost every nation which has 
pretended to that science, has practiced the same 
method. Herodotus mentions it as a custom of 
the Alani, and Tacitus of the old Germans. See 
Cambridge's "Scribleriad," book V, note on 
line 21. 

In the manuscript "Discourse on Witchcraft," 
1705, written by Mr. John Bell, page 41, I find 
the following account from Theophylact on the 
subject of rabdomanteia or rod-divination : * ' They 
set up two staffs, and, having whispered some 
verses and incantations, the staffs fell by the ope- 
ration of dsemons. Then they considered which 
way each of them fell — forward or backward, to 
the right or left hand — and agreeably gave re- 
sponses, having made use of the fall of their staffs 
for their signs," 

Dr. Henry, in his "History of Great Britain," 
tells us (II, 550), that after the Anglo-Saxons and 
Danes embraced the Christian religion, the clergy 
were commanded by the canons to preach very 



THE DIVINING ROD. 65 

frequently against diviners, sorcerers, auguries, 
omens, charms, incantations, and all the filth of 
the wicked and dotages of the Gentiles." 

The following is from " Epigrams, etc.," pub- 
lished London, 1651— Virgula Divina : 

1 ' Some sorcerers do boast they have a rod, 

Gathered with vowes and sacrifice, 
And (borne about) will strangely nod 

To hidden treasure where it lies ; 
Mankind is (sure) that rod divine, 
For to the wealthiest (ever) they incline." 

The earliest use made of the divining rod by the 
miners was for the discovery of the lode. So late 
as three years ago (1850), the process has been 
tried. The method of proceedure was to cut the 
twig of an hazel or apple-tree of twelve months' 
growth, into a forked shape, and to hold this by 
both hands in a peculiar way, walking across the 
land until the twig bent, which was taken as an 
indication of the locality of the lode. The person 
who generally practises this divination boasts 
himself to be the seventh son of a seventh son. 
The twig of hazel bends in his hands to the con- 
viction of the miners that ore is present ; but then 
the peculiar manner in which the twig is held, 
bringing muscular action to bear upon it, accounts 
for its gradual deflection, and the circumstance of 
the strata walked over always containing ore gives 
a further credit to the process of divination. 



66 THE DIVINING ROD. 

The vulgar notion still prevalent in the north of 
England of the hazel's tendency to a vein of lead 
ore, seam or stratum of coal, etc., seems to be a 
vestige of this rod divination. 

The mrgula divlna or baculus divinatorius 
is a forked branch in the form of a Y, cut off an 
hazel stick, by means whereof people have pre- 
tended to discover mines, springs, etc., under- 
ground. The method of using it is this : the per- 
son who bears it, walking yery slowly over the 
places where he suspects mines or springs may 
be, the effluvia exhaling from the metals, or 
vapor from the water impregnating the wood, 
makes it dip or decline, which is the sign of a dis- 
covery. 

In the Living Library or Historicall Medita- 
tions we read: "No man can tell why forked 
sticks of hazill (rather than sticks of other trees 
growing upon the very same places) are fit to 
shew the places where the veins of gold and silver 
are." See Lilly's History of his Life and Times, 
for a curious experiment (which he confesses, 
however, to have failed), to discover hidden treas- 
ure by the hazel rod. 

In the Gentleman 1 s Magazine, for February, 
1752, xxii, 77, we read: "M. Linnaeus, when he 
was upon his voyage to Scania, hearing his secre- 
tary highly extol the virtues of his divining rod, 



THE DIVINING ROD. 67 

was willing to convince himself of its insufficiency, 
and for that purpose concealed a purse of one 
hundred ducats under a ranunculus which grew 
by itself in a meadow and bid the secretary find 
it if he could. The wand discovered nothing, 
and M. Linnaeus' s mark was soon trampled down 
by the company who were present ; so that when 
M. Linnaeus went to finish the experiment by 
fetching the gold himself, he was utterly at a loss 
where to seek it. The man with the wand assisted 
him and pronounced that it could not lie the way 
they were going, but quite the contrary; so he 
pursued the direction of his wand and actually 
dug out the gold. M. Linnaeus adds, that such 
another experiment would make a proselyte of 
him." We read in the same book for November, 
1751, xxi, 507: "So early as Agricola, the divin- 
ing rod was in much request, and has obtained 
great credit for its discovery where to dig for 
metals and springs of water ; for some years past 
its reputation has been on the decline, but lately 
it has been revived by an ingenious gentleman who, 
from numerous experiments, hath good reason to 
believe its effects to be more than imagination. 
He says that hazel and willow rods, he has by 
experience found, will actually answer, with all 
persons in a good state of health, if they are used 
with moderation and at some distance of time, and 



68 THE DIVINING BOD. 

after meals, when the operator is in good spirits. 
The hazel, willow and elm are all attracted by 
springs of water. Some persons have the virtue 
intermittently ; the rod in their hands will attract 
•one half hour and repel the next. The rod is 
attracted by all metals, coals, amber and lime- 
stone, but with different degrees of strength. The 
best rods are those from the hazel or nut tree, as 
they are pliant and tough and cut in the winter 
months. A shoot that terminates equally forked 
is to be met with — two single ones of a length and 
size may be tied together by a thread and will 
answer as well as the other." 

In the supplement to the Athenian Oracle, p. 
234, we read that "the experiment of a hazel's 
tendency 'to a vein' of lead ore is limited to St. 
John Baptist' s Eve, and that with an hazel of that 
same year's growth." 

There is a treatise in French entitled, La Phis- 
ique Occulte ou Traite de la Baguette Divina- 
toire, et de son utilite pour la decouverte des 
sources d'Eau, des Minieres, de Tresors caches, des 
Voleurs et des Meurtriers fugitifs : par M. L. L. 
de Vallemont pretre et docteur en theologie ; 12 
mo., Amsterdam, 1693. 464 pages. 



THE DIVINING ROD. 69 

[From Brand's Popular Antiquities. ,] 

At the end of Henry Alan' s edition of Cicero' s 
treatise De Divinatione, and De Fate, 1839, will 
be fonnd Catalogns auctorum de divinatione ac 
fato, de oraculis, de somniis, de astrologia, de 
dsemonibus, de magia id genus aliis." 

With the divining rod seems connected a lusus 
natures of ash tree bough resembling the litui of 
the Roman augurs and the Christian pastoral 
staff which still obtains a place, if not on this 
account I know not why, in the catalogue of popu- 
lar superstitions. Seven or eight years ago, I 
remember to have seen one of these, which I 
thought extremely beautiful and curious, in the 
house of an old woman at Beeralston, in Devon- 
shire, of whom I would most gladly have pur- 
chased it ; but she declined parting with it on any 
account, thinking it would be unlucky to do so. 
Mr. G-ostling, in the Antiquarian Repertory, ii, 
164, has some observations on this subject. He 
thinks the lituus or staff, with the crook at one 
end, which the augurs of old carried as badges of 
their profession and instruments in the supersti- 
tious exercise of it, was not made of metal but of 
the substance above mentioned. Whether, says 
he, to call it a work of art or nature may be 
doubted : some were probably of the former kind ; 



70 THE DIVINING ROD. 

others, Hogarth, in his Analysis of Beauty, calls 
lusus naturce found in plants of different sorts, 
and in one of the plates of that work gives a speci- 
men of a very elegant one, a branch of ash. I 
should rather, continues he, style it a distemper 
or distortion of nature ; for it seems the effect of a 
wound by some insect which, piercing to the heart 
of the plant with its proboscis, poisons that, while 
the bark remains uninjured and proceeds in its 
growth, but formed into various stripes, flatness 
and curves for the want of the support which 
nature designed it. The beauty, some of these 
arrive at, might well consecrate them to the mys- 
terious fopperies of heathenism, and their rarity 
occasions imitations of them by art. The pastoral 
staff of the Church of Rome seems to have been 
formed from the vegetable litui, though the general 
idea is that it is an imitation of the shepherd's 
crook. The engravings given in the Antiquarian 
Repertory are of carved branches of the ash. 



[From Modern Magic, by M. Sliele de Vere, published 1873.] 

The relations in which some men stand to 
nature are sometimes so close as to enable them 
to make discoveries which' are impossible to 
others. 

This is, for instance, the case with persons who 



THE DIVINING K0D. 71 

feel the presence of waters or of metals. The 
former have, from time immemorial, generally 
nsed a wand, the so-called divining rod, which, 
according to Pliny, was already known to the 
ancient Etruscans as a means for the discovery of 
hidden springs. 

An Italian author, Amoretti, who has given 
special attention to this subject, states that at 
least every fifth man is susceptible to the influence 
of water and metals, but this is evidently an over- 
estimate. 

In recent times many persons have been known 
to possess this gift of discovering hidden springs 
or subterranean masses of water, and these have 
but rarely employed an instrument. 

Catharine Beutler, of Thurgovia, in Switzer- 
land, and Anna Maria Brugger, of the same place, 
were both so seriously affected by the presence of 
water that they fell into violent nervous excite- 
ment when they happened to cross places beneath 
which, large quantities were concealed, and be- 
came perfectly exhausted. 

In France, a class of men, called sourciers, 
have for ages possessed this instinctive power of 
perceiving the presence of water, and others, like 
the famous Abbe Paramelle, have cultivated the 
natural gift till they were finally enabled, by a 
mere cursory examination of a landscape, to 



72 THE DIVINING EOD. 

ascertain whether large masses of water were 
hidden anywhere, and to indicate the precise 
spots where they might be fonnd. 

Why water and metals should almost always 
go hand in hand in connection with this peculiar 
gift, is not quite clear ; but the staff of Hermes, 
having probably the form of the divining rod was 
always represented as giving the command over 
the treasures of the earth, and the Orphic Hymn 
(v. 527,) calls it — hence, the golden rod, producing 
wealth and happiness. 

On the other hand, the Aquae Yirga, the nymph 
of springs, had also a divining rod in her hand, 
and Numa, inspired by a water-nymph, estab- 
lished the worship of waters in connection of that 
of the dead. For here, also, riches and death seem 
to have entered into a strange alliance. 

Del Rio, in his Disquisitiones Magicce, men- 
tions thus the Rahuri of Spain — the lynx-eyed, as 
he translates the name — who were able, on Wed- 
nesdays and Saturdays, to discover all the veins of 
metals or of water beneath the surface, all hidden 
treasures and corpses in their coffins. 

There is at least one instance recorded, where 
a person possessed the power to see even more 
than the Rahuris. This was a Portuguese lady, 
Pedegache, who first attracted attention by being 
able to discover subterranean springs and their 



THE DIVINING ROD. 73 

connections, a gift which brought her great honors 
after she had informed the king of all the various 
supplies of water which were hidden near a 
palace which he was about to build. Shafts were 
sunk according to her directions, and not only 
water was found but also various soils and stones 
which she had foretold would have to be pierced. 

She also seems to have cultivated her talent, 
for we hear of her next being able to discover 
treasures, even valuable antique statues in the 
interior of houses, and finally she reached such a 
degree of intuition that she saw the inner parts of 
the human body, and pointed out their diseases 
and defects. 

The divining rod, originally a twig of willow or 
hazel, is often made of metal, and the impression 
prevails that in such cases an electric current 
arising from the subterranean water or metals 
enters the diviner's body by the feet, passes 
through him, and finally affects the two branches 
of the rod, which represent opposite poles. It is 
certain that when the electric current is inter- 
rupted, the power of the divining rod is sus- 
pended. 



74 THE DIVINING ROD. 



[From Notes and Queries.'] 



Perhaps, like many of your correspondents, I 
had imagined that the supposed properties of the 
divining rod had been a discovery recently made, 
either by the great American artist, Mr. Barnum, 
or by one of Dii Minores of this country. To 
my mortification, however, I find that it is u as old 
as the hills," or at least contemporaneous with 
the Sortes Virgilianae, et id genus omne. I have 
before me the works of Mr. Abraham Cowley, in 
two vols. 12 mo., London, 1681, and in one of his 
Pindarique Odes, addressed to Mr. Hobs, I find 
the following lines : 

To walk in ruines like vain ghosts, we love, 
And with fond divining wands, 
We search among the dead 
For treasures buried. 

And to these lines is added the following note : 

"Virgula Divina, or divining wand, is a two- 
forked branch of a hazel tree which is used for 
the finding out either of veins or hidden treasures 
of gold or silver, and being carried about bends 
downwards (or rather is said to do so,) when it 
comes to the place where they lye." 

" In the first edition of his Mathematical 
Recreations, Dr. Hutton laughed at the divining 
rod. In the interval between that and the second 



THE DIVINING ROD. 75 

edition a lady made him change his note, by rising 
one before him, at Woolwich. Hutton had the 
conrage to publish the account of the experiment 
in his second edition, after the account he had 
previously given. By a letter from Hutton to 
Bruce, printed in the memoir of the former which 
the latter wrote, it appears that the lady was 
Lady Milbanke." 

"A Cornish lady informs me that the Cornish 
miners to this day use the divining rod." 

However the pretended effect of the divining 
rod may be attributed to knavery and credulity 
by philosophers who will not take the trouble of 
witnessing and investigating the operation, any 
one who will pay a visit to the Mendip Hills, in 
Somersetshire, and the country around their base, 
may have abundant proof of the efficacy of it. 
Its success has been very strikingly proved along 
the range of the Pennard Hills, also, to the south 
of the Mendip. The faculty of discovering water 
by means of the divining rod is not possessed by 
every one, for indeed there are but few who pos- 
sess it in any considerable degree, or in whose 
hands the motion of the rod, when passing over 
an underground stream, is very decided, and they 
who have it are quite unconscious of their capa- 
bility until made aware of it by experiment. 



76 THE DIVIDING ROD. 

I saw the operation of the rod, or rather of a 
fork formed by the shoots of the last year, held 
in the hands of the experimenter by the extremi- 
ties, with the angle projecting before him. When 
he came over the spot beneath which the water 
flowed, the rod, which had before been perfectly 
still, writhed about with considerable force, so 
that the holder could not keep it in its former 
position, and he appealed to the bystanders to 
notice that he had made no motion to produce 
this effect, and used every effort to prevent it. 
The operation was several times repeated with the 
same result, and each 'time under the close in- 
spection of shrewd and doubting, if not incredu- 
lous^observers. Forks of any kind of green wood 
served equally well, but those of dead wood had 
no effect. The experimenter had discovered 
water, in several instances, in the same parish 
(Pennard), but was perfectly unaware of his capa- 
bility till he was requested by his landlord to try. 
The operator had the reputation of a perfectly 
honest man, whose word might be safely trusted, 
and who was incapable of attempting to deceive 
any one — as indeed appeared by his open and in- 
genuous manner and conversation on this occasion. 
He was a farmer, and respected by all his neigh- 
bors. So general is the conviction of the efficacy 



THE DIVINING KOD. 77 

of the divining rod in discovering both water and 
the ores of calameni or zinc all over the Mendip, 
that the people are quite astonished when any 
doubt is expressed about it. The late Dr. Hutton 
wrote against the pretension, as one of many in- 
stances of deception founded upon gross igno- 
rance and credulity, when a lady of quality, who 
herself possessed the faculty, called upon him and 
gave him experimental proof, in the neighborhood 
of Woolwich, that water was discoverable by that 
means. This, Dr. Hutton afterwards publicly 
acknowledged. 



After delivering my essay before the Civil En- 
gineers' Club of the Northwest, the following 
letter was forwarded to me by the secretary : 

Brownsville, Tenn. 
Gentlemen: — I notice that at a meeting of your 
honorable Club, Mr. Latimer read an essay upon the 
subject of the "Divining Rod," and seemed to be at a 
loss to know how to tell whether the rod's movements 
pointed to or indicated any particular substance under 
the earth. I am now seventy-three years of age, and 
have been studying and experimenting with it since 
twenty years of age. I am not satisfied what causes the 
motion of it in my hands, but by experimenting, I can 
tell to a certainty whether I am over any substance, 



78 THE DIVINING ROD. 

either water or mineral, or whether it is sulphur, salt or 
auy other kind of water. 

I am glad that investigation iu this is being made by 
scientific men, and hope some day it may profit man. 
For any information you may want, adddress me at 
Brownsville, Tennessee. 

Very respectfully, Harry Sangster. 

Upon receipt of this letter from Mr. Sangster, 
I wrote to him asking him to explain to me upon 
what principle he could discover the difference 
between metals and water, and between one kind 
of water and another. To this I have received 
the following answer, just in time to add it to this 
publication : 

Brownsville, May 10, 1876. 
C. Latimer, Esq., Cleveland, Ohio : 

Dear Sir: — Your favor of the 5th inst. is before me; 
also that of the loth ult. You must excuse me for not 
answering the latter sooner, owing to ill health and 
other causes. I am glad to furnish you all the informa- 
tion in my power relative to the matter in question, 
because I would like to see it developed — as I believe it 
will be eventually — into a tangible, practical and useful 
science. The prejudice now prevailing against it will, 
in my opinion, ere long be dispelled. It is impossible 
for me, in the space of a letter, to give a full statement 
of my views, theory and experience on the subject of 
finding the locality of metals, minerals and water under 



THE DIVINING ROD. 79 

the surface of the ground; but will endeavor to answer 
the iuquiry of your first letter as concisely and explicitly 
as possible. 

I understand fully the method of calculating the depth 
of water beneath the surface. What you wish to know 
is, after the substance is shown to exist beneath a certain 
point, whether it be mineral, metal or water, and the 
kind, character and description of each. As you are 
aware of the fact, the simple "forked rod" will indicate 
the presence of either of these. Now, to tell which of 
these it is, and the character of the same ; if it be water, 
the kind of water. This is my method of testing the 
same, whether it be water, mineral or metal : It is on 
the principle of affinity — the attraction that like sub- 
stances have for each other. After the rod indicates the 
particular spot, I take a sponge and saturate it with 
ordinary drinking water, either from spring or well, and 
put it on the top of the rod, and test it with this. If the 
substance beneath be water, and the same kind of that 
in the sponge, it will turn much stronger, and the 
demonstation be more active and powerful. But, if the 
rod should not turn at all, it will be some other sub- 
stance, either mineral or metal. To test the kind of 
water, after I am satisfied that it is water — to discover, 
for instance, whether it be sulphur water, I dip my sponge 
in that kind of water, and test as above. If the move- 
ment of the rod be active and strong when this is done, 
the water below will be that species of water. If salt 
water, dip the sponge in that kind of water, and the 



80 THE DIVINING ROD. 

result will be similar ; arid so on through the whole 
catalogue of waters. 

In regard to the metals. The tests are made in a similar 
manner. After I discover by proper tests that it is a 
metal, which are as follows : If it be metal or mineral, 
after the sponge is saturated with water, the rod will not 
act at all. I then put a piece of metal on the top of the 
rod ; first, a small bit of iron. If there is no movement 
of the rod at the spot already indicated, it is safe to 
conclude that the substance is not of that nature; so I 
continue the experiment with different kinds of metal — 
lead, silver, copper, tin, gold, etc., until I find some one of 
these that will cause the rod to turn and operate in a 
manner sufficiently strong and satisfactory. The same 
method pertains to the minerals. Of course, a great 
deal of the practical operations of these various tests, 
will depend upon one's discretion and judgment at the ' 
time they are made, which it is impossible to put upon 
paper. This is but a general outline of the system. 

If I can be of any further assistance to you in the 
investigation of this subject, do not fail to let me know 
of it. Would be pleased to hear from you at any and 
all times. Be sure and send me your pamphlet. 

Yours, respectfully, Harry Sangster. 

Immediately after receiving this letter, I made 
some experiments as follows : I took a green, 
forked twig, and found that over iron water-pipe, 
gas-pipe, and over a cistern of water, it turned 



THE DIVINING ROD. 81 

down vigorously. I then took a wet rag and fast- 
ened it on top of the twig or rod. As Mr. Sangster 
testifies, I found it powerless over the iron water- 
pipe and over the gas- pipe, but it turned rapidly 
over the cistern. I put a key on the end of the rod 
over the wet rag ; then the rod turned over both 
iron pipes promptly. Again, I took off the rag 
and put the key on the rod, and walking to the 
cistern, found that there was no movement. I 
took off the key and the rod turned instantly. I 
have no doubt but that he is correct as regards 
other metals. 



82 THE DIVINING ROD. 



CONCLUSION. 

If any one, after the perusal of these pages, is 
disposed to doubt the efficacy of the divining 
rod, he will find it at least difficult to explain the 
coincidences between my experiences and those 
of the various persons presented in the foregoing 
pages — all confirming most fully conclusions 
reached by me, after many experiments made 
when quite alone. And, he must be even more 
eccentric than IT Homme a la Baguette, who does 
not find in the subject a treasure hidden, well 
worthy of his research. 

It will be noticed that I can lay claim to no 
originality, or rather to no knowledge beyond 
that of the greater number of the parties men- 
tioned, in regard to the fact of the discovery of 
minerals or waters ; but, I find myself in advance 
in two essentials. First, I absolutely proved, by 
insulating myself on glass or India rubber san- 
dals, that the electric emanations were cut off. 
Secondly, that these emanations universally radi- 
ate at an angle of forty -five degrees from the hor- 
izontal, and thus the calculation of the depth 



THE DIVINING E0D. 83 

below the surface, is simply the solution of a 
mathematical problem. 

In this theory of the invariable law of electric 
emanations, I have received the strongest confirm- 
ation in the perusal of Baron Von Reichenbach's 
Dynamics of Magnetism. By numerous and 
varied experiments, Heichenbach proved that 
•from metals, and especially from magnets, there 
is a constant emanation of electric flame upward, 
at an angle of forty-five degrees with the horizon. 
For a more serious study of the subject, I refer 
the reader to the work itself, which is fall of 
curious and well authenticated experiences. 

Finally, I would paraphrase the words of my 
friend, the renowned Pedro Garcia: "To thee, 
whomsoever thou art, who mayst have the genius 
to investigate and the courage to face wise fools, 
I predict a valuable discovery, which will benefit 
the human race." 



THE END. 



THE 



DIVINING EOD 



VIRGULA DIVINA— BACULUS DIVINATORIUS 
(WATER-WITCHING.) 



By CHARLES LATIMER, 

Civil Engineer. 



"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are 
dreamt of in your philosophy."— Shakespeare. 



CLEVELAND, O, 

FAIRBANKS, BENEDICT & CO., PRINTERS, 
1876. 



"Hear, now, ye rebels; must 
we fetch water out of this rock." 





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